


A Story About Change

by Kitty Eden (TheBigCat)



Category: Sapphire and Steel
Genre: Body Horror, Cats, Gardening, Gen, Inspired by Welcome to Night Vale, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 06:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19785436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBigCat/pseuds/Kitty%20Eden
Summary: This is a story about change, say the words on the computer screen in front of you. And you are afraid, because change is something that none of us like to experience, or indeed, think about too much at all.





	1. Chapter 1

Let's talk about you for a second.

You are not an important person. You live your life day to day, like many of us tend to do. You attend a school of some description, and you get decent enough grades to get by without your parents paying too much attention, or too little. You are depressingly average in many respects.

But all your life, you have had an immense craving for something _more_ – something special, that will make you stand out. You have always had the suspicion that you are secretly the heir to some majestic underground faerie empire, and one day your subjects will come to claim you and take you away to their kingdom, where you will reside forevermore as a wise and noble emperor of a long-forgotten land. You have always secretly entertained fantasies such as this, and have never really given up on the idea of magic being real. This may be why that you occasionally talk to cats as if they are able to respond – just in case they one day will – and speak into the unrelenting darkness at night because you think that there may be something within it to speak back.

But deep within yourself, you know that these fantasies will never come to pass. Because things like that never happen in real life. You know that it is probably far more likely that you will graduate at the end of your high school career, maybe get into university – maybe not – and live out the rest of your life in a suitably boring and unhappy manner.

These are the thoughts within your head as you idly browse the internet this evening. As you do so, you click across to the uppermost story in the current category of the fanfiction archive that you have been looking at, and you read these words that I am writing to you now, and you freeze, and you narrow your eyes, because the things that are being said in the first chapter are accurate. Slightly too accurate to be a complete coincidence.

Oh, I'm not talking about the rest of you. This is a story about _you_. And you only.

You know who you are.

On this particular evening, you decide that the whole thing with your life story being displayed on a screen before your eyes was, in fact, a complete coincidence, and you furthermore decide to stop reading works of fiction for the night so you can get some homework done – the homework that you have been frantically avoiding doing for a good couple of weeks.

Your first decision was incorrect, and your second decision was probably correct, really. But you know nothing about that, because you are no longer reading what I have to say about you.

You begin work on your long-abandoned English essay, which you seem to recall was due tomorrow. You spend quite a long time reading and rereading what you had previously written, frowning angrily at the page and knowing you'll never be able to complete it up to the same level of quality that you started it with. This is how it always goes. 

You know, already, that you have put it off for far too long, and have begun work on your project entirely too late. You do not know that your recollection of the essay being due tomorrow is false. You actually have like two weeks left to do it. But that doesn't matter. None of that matters.

Right now, there is only you and your computer and the glowing white blank expanse of a Word document that only has 241 words (and counting) to display for your troubles.

The keyboard clicks and clacks. Your brow furrows. You hunch in your ergonomic chair in a way that is probably not ergonomic in and of itself. Your spine will suffer, if this is to continue. That also does not matter.

The essay continues. The world carries on. Somewhere outside your window, a dog barks at a stray whiff of ozone. That may matter, but not just yet.

And all the while, it's getting darker and darker outside.


	2. Chapter 2

Your computer timer beeps. It is 6.35, on the dot. You push yourself back from the computer – yawn, and stretch. It's not late – not really, not exactly – but you feel like it's about time for you to take a break. Dinner seems like a distinct, not entirely distant, possibility.

Wandering downstairs, you take quick note of the fact that your house is empty. 

Your family is away for tonight. This matters, but only in the distant way that the fact that the moon is in the sky every night matters to our continued existence. It matters in the way that the stars being absent for now and evermore is a certainty.

Dinner is a quiet, comfortable affair – just you, yourself, and you. Your old ginger cat, Persephone, creeps through the kitchen as you eat, and presses up against your legs like an iron. She's dangerous to touch for too long.

This is not important.

The scene that is formed here is one that is very, very normal. You are used to eating dinner alone with nothing but an alleged cat to keep you company, and nothing but leftovers, takeout, or leftover takeout for your solitary meal. 'Alleged' is the correct word to use here, because you haven't looked under the layers of mangy fur and claws and eyes for a while. You're not entirely sure that Persephone is actually a cat.

Again. It isn't important. Nothing has changed in your household for a very long time. Same procrastination. Same lonely meals. Same cat (?). Same commute to school and back and school and back and again and again and it never does stop, does it? Does _that_ matter? 

You aren't sure.

You finish your meal, and hunt for a bowl to scoop ice cream into. This is a task that takes you several minutes, which I will not bother to describe here, because – as you have no doubt understood by now – some things are important, and some things are not important. But some things are even less important than all that. And do not need to be mentioned at all.

Ice cream, then. And the good kind, too – the type that actually exists.

There are no clean spoons left. You compromise with a fork, and give Persephone a respectful nod before leaving the kitchen and preparing to ascend the stairs. Your intention is to finish your homework in your room, and if there is time afterwards, relax with some mindless, Council-approved television.

This is important, but only because it doesn't happen.

You pass by the front windows on your way to the stairs, and your eyes catch on something outside. You can see through the windows to the darkened street outside.

There are two figures there. One is not tall. The other is not short. The one who is not short is wearing a scarf. You see bright eyes. They are standing on the sidewalk across from your house, and they are watching you. You can't see where they are looking, but you know they are watching you.

A low growl behind you. Fur is burning – Persephone is not happy. She is never really happy, to be completely honest, but she looks even less happy than usual. She is glaring out the window, following your gaze.

The ice cream is slowly deconstructing in your bowl.

You want to go upstairs and ignore the figures on the street – to skip out on your barely-started essay altogether, and go right to the mindless television part of your agenda – but you are aware of the constant inevitability of the unknown. You are aware that some things just cannot be changed.

You are aware that this is important.

You set your ice cream aside, knowing that it will dwindle away into nothing before you ever get a chance to eat it. You push Persephone back with the one foot that has a sock on it. You take a deep breath.

The air you breathe is filled with millions upon billions of microscopic organisms, some corporeal, some not. Sometimes the act of breathing kills quite a few of them. Sometimes the act of breathing kills quite a lot of them. The very act of breathing is, more often than not, genocide. This is what you have learned in science, recently. This is accurate. You know this because the school has taught it to you.

This is not relevant. It may be important. It's hard to tell.

Nonetheless – you open the door.

You step outside.


	3. Chapter 3

The night is windy but not cold. The sky is starless but not dark. The pavement is empty but not unoccupied. Life is an endless conundrum of esoterica. 

This evening is a contradiction, in more ways than one.

The figures on the street resolve themselves as you approach. The person who is not short is a woman, refined and elegant. She smiles at you. It doesn't reach her eyes. She reminds you of a member of the Student Council in some way. Although she appears to be perfectly healthy. And her eyes are the most stunning shade of blue.

The person who is not tall shows no interest in pleasantries. He scowls at you, and he stands beside his companion as if nothing is certain, and belief in anything at all is a complete waste of time.

"Hello," you say.

"We've been expecting you," says the man who is not tall.

"It's been a long time," says the woman who is not short.

We are all, at one point or another in our life, afraid. It doesn't really matter what this moment is, or why it is that we are afraid. It just matters that we are. Fear makes us human.

_This is important._

You have never met this woman or this man in your life before, but you feel as if you have known them for an eternity already. You think that it is very possible that neither of them have felt fear in their lives.

"Have you compiled the data for us?" the man asks, all business.

You don't know what he's talking about. You have no reason to know what he's talking about. Why should you? This is the first time that you have met these two people. You begin to say "no, and – " and your intention is that you will follow this up with a suitably sensible question, such as '– and what on Earth are you talking about?' or '– and how can I help you acquire this data that you're talking about?’ – but the woman cuts you off.

"We're too early," she says. "We're too late."

"It's never too late," says the man. "Or too early. Not in our line of work."

They exchange loaded glances. 

There is a sound like a trash compactor regretting its life decisions. Persephone has somehow managed to escape the house, and is crossing the street at a speed faster than you have ever seen her move in her long, dubious existence. She hisses and howls like a beast deranged. Neither the woman who is not short or the man who is not tall seem remotely fazed by this. Persephone doesn't dare to get closer than a meter or two to the pair.

At this point, what is important and what is not is somewhat irrelevant.

And you really aren't paying attention at all, are you?

Of course you aren't. You're somewhat occupied at the moment, after all.

I'll dispense with the formalities.

What occurs next is inevitable, inexplicable, and completely unplanned by any earthly force. First the woman, then the man, extends a hand to you.

It's clear that the choice is only superficial, because it won't really matter which of their hands you decide to take. And not taking a hand is, of course, not an option. This is the call to action that you have been waiting for.

They're not faeries, not in the strictest sense, and you really do feel very small next to the two of them, so you don't think you are the protagonist here. But this is the closest that you're going to get, you know.

(You think.)

(Is this important?)

(We agreed we'd give up questioning that.)

(Or maybe that was just me.)

(Come to think of it, you never really did have much of a say in any of this at all, did you? My deepest apologies. There's nothing to be done now, of course.)

You take the woman's hand, because she seems kinder, slightly. You smell ozone.

And then there is nobody left on the sidewalk at all, save for a ginger, angry creature that may or may not have been a cat at some point in its life.


	4. Chapter 4

Everything is dark, and then everything is dark. There is no distinction between the two. They are the same, but different.

When you arrive, you are no longer holding the hand of the woman who is not short. Instead, it is clasped tightly between the fingers of the man who is not tall. This barely worries you, because it is only ever so slightly strange compared to everything else that is going on today. The man who is not tall releases you like you are Persephone and he is your leg and you are burning him with a fire that shouldn't exist.

You are Somewhere Else. There is no sun, but it's bright like you could never imagine. There is no wildlife, but that doesn't account for the tree that is in front of you, filling your entire field of vision. You've never seen anything like it. You have never seen a tree before. You only have the vaguest of schemas for what a tree actually is. But this looks pretty much like what you imagine a tree to be, so you feel safe in drawing the conclusion that yes, this is probably a tree.

It is huge, and it towers. Its multitude of limbs extend in every direction; some possible, some not. There are no leaves. Its branches drip with impossibly bright colors, but they never seem to contact the ground. Veins run up and down its trunk like children, careless and full of energy.

Its roots are gnarled and twisted, sinking pointedly into the earth and extending far beneath, past any point that you could possibly be aware of.

You are insignificant besides its grandeur.

You do not matter.

You are not important.

You think that the tree could possibly go on forever, in every direction, and you'd have absolutely no idea of that happening because you simply can't comprehend the scale of it on any level except the one that you exist on.

The woman who is not short and the man who is not tall seem unimpressed. This is, of course, because they've seen it millions of times before. But you don't know that. 

The woman steps up to the base of the tree. She is not short, but she barely measures up to the lowest branches. She presses a hand to the tree and closes her eyes and sings to it, but not in any language, form, or scale that you know of. You aren't sure if she's communicating with it (the tree?) somehow, or just singing for the hell of it. She is singing where the blue fades to purple, and her face is aglow with the brightness of this strange world. The man who is not tall watches her with something like fondness, and then turns to you. 

"The unacceptability of change," he says, "is something that you have a great deal of trouble with." He frowns, and amends that. "You, as in the general you. Not you personally. Although I'm sure you have a great deal of trouble with that too."

You tell him you don't understand, and he nods like he saw that coming from the very beginning of time.

"Change is important," says the woman who is not short, opening her eyes, and retracting her hand from the tree. "You are never the same person from the same day to the next. you are constantly evolving, moving, growing. Much like our friend here." She raises a hand, to indicate the tree behind her.

"Not you?" you wonder.

The woman who is not short and the man who is not tall share a moment of brief amusement; laugh at an in-joke that you can never hope to comprehend. "No," says the woman. "Not us. Never us."

"You have been static for too long," says the man. He is standing where the orange fades to pink, and it is dripping over him without it ever touching him in any way.

"Why am I here?" you ask. "What do you need from me?"

The smile that the woman gives you is almost twisted, if such a word can ever be applied to her face.

"What we need is simple," she says. "And it's not precisely what we need _from_ you – it's what we need you to _be_."

You are standing where the green fades to black. You can smell the electricity in the air. It's going to rain soon.

"What do you need me to be, then?" you ask. You don't dread the answer, but you should.

The man's face barely twitches.

"Fertilizer," he says.


	5. Chapter 5

You react in a suitably sensible manner to this revelation. But you don't manage to begin to run quite quick enough, because the man who is not tall grabs you by the arm, preventing you from getting very far at all – and besides, where would you run to? It's not like you know where you are, or how to get home.

The man's grip is like steel.

The woman comes up next to him. She looks calm. The man looks amused. You feel terrified. These are all sensible emotions that normal people experience, but you think that none of the three of you are normal.

You wonder, briefly, if there should be a separate set of emotions reserved especially for extraordinary circumstances. This is a very strange thought to have.

"I don't want to change," you say. "I'm happy as I am."

"Nobody wants to change, but nobody is ever happy as they are," says the woman who is not short. It sounds profound, but there's an emptiness to the words. Her condolences are as thin as paper, which is about how thin they need to be. She's only doing her job. Your emotions are irrelevant.

"Look," says the man who is not tall, and you look. He is indicating the tree. He is indicating the roots of the tree, which spiral downwards and outwards like a narrative that wasn't planned in advance.

"I want to go home," you say, instead of asking what you're looking for.

"Look," says the woman who is not short, and you look. She is indicating the colors dripping from the branches from the tree. They drip and disappear and drip and disappear like unfinished trains of thoughts.

"Let go of me," you say, instead of asking what she's trying to show you.

"Look," they say together. And you look. They are indicating the sky. It is bright and endless like a future that does not exist yet.

You sob, instead of asking what's going on.

They take you to the roots. There's no real point in fighting it – they are stronger than you. They have the advantage of knowing where you are. You don't matter, anyway.

Your hands become entangled with the almost-wood. Your head rests against the trunk. Your legs are trapped; pinned down by more roots.

The man who is not tall is running what appear to be final checks – making sure that you are securely in place.

The woman who is not short kneels down before you.

"Comfortable?"

All you can do is stare at her.

"I'm glad," she says, and leans forward to kiss you on the forehead, once. It is surprisingly emotionless, in that it's surprising how little emotion is carried in it. The man who is not tall rises, and so does the woman. They both appear satisfied with this. They turn, in perfect synchronicity, and walk. They walk into nothingness and nowhere, and then they are gone and all you can smell is ozone.

You are lying where the white fades into gold and you feel wetness on your face. You hope it's the color, but you are aware that it probably isn't.

And after that, it takes a very long time for something else to happen.


	6. Chapter 6

Slowly, you decompose. Slowly, you deconstruct.

Your flesh withers away into dust over the process of months and years, and your skeleton takes longer to wear its way into nothingness. Your eyes dry in their sockets; rotting away like overripe grapes. Your hair spindles and thins and blows away in the breeze that is not cold or hot. Your fingernails curl and curve and grow into the tree. The tree feeds on you like a hungry child. And yet, somehow, you remain strikingly aware of everything all through this process.

You see and feel the changing with perfect clarity, categorizing every new and unique sensation and filing it away neatly for future reference, if that reference should become necessary. You experience a range of unique emotions that have never been felt before by any living or non-living human being, and they are wonderful, and they are terrible. You wonder why this is happening to you, and then realize, and then forget, and then realize again.

You gradually begin to suspect that the monolith that you are laying at the base of is only a tree in the same way that Persephone is a cat – tentatively; tangentially.

You wonder how Persephone is doing. You wonder if anybody is feeding her. You wonder how your family is doing, but come to the conclusion, over a great deal many of years, that they probably never cared about you anyway. This may not be very accurate, but then again, I think we can forgive you for some inaccuracy. You are being subjected to a most inexplicable experience currently. There is no real precedent for this, not in living human memory.

Eventually, your body is completely gone – down to the last atom, you have been broken apart entirely.

And yet, you remain.

You are ground. You are earth. You are travelling through roots, you are dripping from branches. You are air, you are cloud, you are light. You are consumed by insects in the ground, caught on the wings of birds spiraling through the sky; flung away from there to places unknown. You are in every drop of water. You are electricity itself, you are the center of every storm. You are a speck in a jazz singer's eye, the wood on her accompanist's cello. You are sugar, you are mud. You are seen by everybody. Nobody can see you at all. 

The distinction between important and non-important blurs and vanishes. You are eternal now. You see everything, know everything. Nothing is not worth knowing. You are change. You are changing. You have always been changing. From one moment to the next, nothing is fixed.

It would be exhilarating, if you still thought about things in those terms. But you don't any more, because you are ascendant and transcendent and impossible and constantly in motion.

And there's never any reason to stop.


	7. Chapter 7

You are the tree again, eventually. 

It takes time, but all things cycle back to where they started. You are in the bark and you are in the color and you gradually become aware of a presence there with you.

The woman who is not short is standing at the base of the tree and she is singing to you. Her hand is up against the tree and she is singing in the only language, form, and scale that you know how to comprehend. She is singing news of the world that you only know through snippets. She is telling you how things have changed, of how things always change.

Change is important, you know. You are never the same creation from one moment to the next – you are constantly evolving, moving, growing. Much like the tree that you once were fed to – gradually, agonizingly.

You are color – blue fading to purple – and you see that there is another body at the base of the tree now. She is young. She is crying out for her mother, unaware that she will not longer need her mother in due course. You want to tell her that, but there are no words that you could tell her that she would understand.

 _It's all right_ , sings the woman who is not short. _The cycle will begin anew soon._

This is important. More important than most things in your new life. Cycles are important, because they bring about change. But at the same time, the very point of cycles is that things always remain the same. Eventually.

Soon, you are no longer the tree, and you are sky and stone and salt and storm, and many other things besides. 

You can no longer hear me, although it has been a very long time since you could ever be aware of my words in the first place. I hope you know that I miss you greatly, and wish you only the best.

Life carries on. The tree continues to grow, because it is necessary. Your school stands, as it always will stand; where it always will stand.

Perhaps, as you become a speck of nameless electricity, darting along a wire or circuit somewhere in the distant reaches of microscopic eternity, you can become aware of words.

Words formed out of letters, formed out of lines, formed out of pixels, displayed on any number of screens in any number of locations. But only on this singular world. Just this one.

And the words say:

This has been a story about change.

And you are no longer afraid, because change is something that you constantly experience – but no longer need to think about in the slightest. And you are happier for it.

And the words say:

Good night, my dear readers.

Good night.


End file.
